How do South Dakota Farms and Ranches Find Workers?
Times have changed and are changing! It used to be if you wanted to buy a used car, you checked the want ads in the paper. Same for a job or summer job. You could run through the list and see who was looking and if it might be a good fit for you.
Recently, I stumbled across an article that caught my attention. The title for the story was: '88 Survey: 88 percent of farmers hire through word-of-mouth.' My brothers are both in the farming industry so I know how important it is to find good help.
The article I'm referring to came from RFD-TV, it said;
According to a Farm Journal Pulse Poll from December, 88 percent of farmers use word-of-mouth as their primary way of finding employees.
After that, ads at local community college (5 percent), employment sites (3 percent) and social media (3 percent) make up the other major ways farmers recruit people looking for work.
Family members probably come first. If you have kids coming up, you most likely get them started on the lawnmower and graduate them to the pickup and then the tractor. Ranchers are much the same. Kids coming up through the ranks can get their start and see if the family business is something they want to do long term.
So how about your farm or ranch? How do you find help for the place? I'd love to know. You can let me know. Shoot me an email anytime at jdcollins@kikn.com.
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